Narayan Waman Tilak

Narayan Vaman Tilak (6 December 1861 – 1919) was a Marathi poet from the Konkan region of then Bombay Presidency in British India, and a famous convert to Christianity.

Tilak was born on 1861 in the village of Karajhgaon in Ratnagiri District of Bombay Presidency.

During 1869–1873, he studied in the town of Kalyan near Mumbai, and studied primarily Sanskrit literature during the next four years in the town of Nashik. After learning English and other school subjects during 1877–1889, he terminated his studies, undertaking a modest job as a teacher to support himself and his bride, Manakaranika Gokhale (मनकर्णिका गोखले), to whom his marriage was arranged in 1880 by his family in accord with the social custom of his times. After marriage Manakarnika was given the name Laxmibai. She had no formal schooling; however, through Tilak's encouragement, she learned to read and write Marathi, mastering the language to the extent of later writing her autobiography, Smruti Chitre (स्मृतिचित्रे), which turned out to be an autobiographical masterpiece in Marathi.

Tilak undertook a variety of modest jobs in different towns in Maharashtra at different times in his life, including the job of a teacher, a Hindu priest, and a printing press compositor.

In 1891, he got a job in Nagpur as a translator of Sanskrit literature. (He himself wrote some poems in Sanskrit in the following years.) Under the patronage of one Appasaheb Buti, he edited for a while a Marathi magazine named Rushi (ऋषि), which was aimed at discussions of Hindu religious matters.

In 1893, Tilak was once travelling by train from Nagpur to Rajnandgaon, a princely state ruled by a Hindu priest, and located within the then Central Provinces of India, in search of employment. During this journey, he met a Protestant missionary Ernest Ward of the Free Methodist Church who spoke glowingly of Christianity, presented a copy of the Bible to Tilak, and suggested that Tilak would become a Christian within two years.

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